Snap Judgment Week 9 College Football

So Halloween. my favorite holiday has come and gone, and yesterday, some teams got treats and others got tricked. Some teams got a big handful of those fun sized candy bars, and other teams got one of those nasty peanut butter candies wrapped in the orange wax paper. Here's my breakdown of how yesterday's college slate played out.

USC fans need to calm down. Your team got whipped. I mean really whipped. Like haven't seen a beating like that in over a decade whipped. So stop minimizing what this means for your program, the Oregon program or the PAC-10. They USC defense that had looked so good three weeks ago, and then faltered some last week, gave it up like a prom date to the Oregon offense. Over 600 yards of offense. And most of it on the ground. There's nothing more humiliating to a defense than to have a team just run down your throat and that's what Oregon did. The USC defense was powerless to stop them. Lots and lots of missed tackles and bad angles. Oh, and as I tweeted, I am more inclined to think that most of us have had Taylor Mays way overrated. He hasn't impressed me at all this season, and last night was more proof of that.

On offense, USC looked out of sorts and it all started with quarterback Matt Barkley. Barkley has a bright future ahead of him, but he looked like a freshman last night for sure. I still think that the Trojans do not utilize Joe McKnight nearly enough. He's such an explosive player, he should get 25-30 touches a game. The Trojans haven't looked great all season, and yesterday they just looked out of sorts.

Where do these two teams go from here? For USC, they need to regroup and get it in gear. The PAC-10 is still pretty wide open, and a team like Oregon could still falter. They still have Stanford and Arizona on their schedules, and either or both of those games could be slip ups. USC needs to take a moment to look at themselves closely especially what they could be doing better on defense. For Oregon, they have to just keep doing what they are doing. They also have Stanford and Arizona, both on the road, and that's going to be brutal for them. I don't think that Oregon is a super talented team, but they are winning and playing well and at this point in the season, wins and losses mean twice as much as they do in September.

Oh, and I am going to touch on something I am going to go into greater detail in my latest Heisman breakdown, but can we please not all immediately climb onto the Jeremiah Masoli for Heisman bandwagon? Please be reasonable.

The other big game of the weekend, turned out to be a good old fashion Texas beatdown as the Longhorns finally got tired of no one thinking they are national championship caliber and walked into Stillwater and laid into the Cowboys.

The Texas D really asserted themselves against an Oklahoma State offense who'd done pretty well all season on offense. I am being kind to the Cowboys as the Longhorn defenders pretty much owned them all night. McCoy and the offense didn't put up gawdy stats but then again they didn't need to.

For Texas the path to the Big 12 title game, is pretty clear. The Big 12 is clearly down this year, and it's ripe for the picking. I can't see a scenario short of an injury to McCoy that means the Longhorns aren't in the National Title game. For Oklahoma State they have to win and hope that Texas somehow slips up a couple of times. Not much chance of that at this point, so they should just keep winning and see what bowl game they can get.

I have to say Texas impressed me last night, more than any team has all season. In a year where there are several undefeated teams but none of them playing like elite teams week after week, Texas showed a little bit Saturday that they belong near the top.

Some quick hits on the rest of the slate...

Iowa are officially the cardiac kids. They keep winning, which is great, but are any of the other top teams really scared of them?

The Big Ten as a whole is an overrated conference. I am unimpressed with all the top teams, even in their wins.

Has their been a greater regression by a player than Jevan Snead? What a meltdown.